


After The Agni Kai

by sarahenany



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Hurt Zuko (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Zuko whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahenany/pseuds/sarahenany
Summary: Iroh is there to take care of Zuko after the Agni Kai. Not Zuko's Story compliant. Basically some comforting, because after the Agni Kai, I needed it.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 93





	After The Agni Kai

Iroh can’t believe Ozai would do this. He’s going to fight the duel _himself?_ Forcing his son to face off against his _father_ in battle?

As the boy turns, he sees his father and goes sheet-white. Iroh grimaces, feeling his pain. There are only two ways Zuko can go from here, and neither is good. Fighting his father would be a crime against filial piety. He would be rejected by the court, turned into a pariah: not fighting… well, Iroh doesn’t know the consequences for that. It all depends on Ozai’s mercy. Surely, Iroh reassures himself, he’s merely placing the boy in an impossible position in order to force a public apology from him, to impress upon him the necessity of filial obedience.

Sure enough, the boy does the right thing and refuses to fight his own father, which is as it should be. “You will fight for your honor,” Ozai intones grimly, almost making Iroh believe he _wants_ to fight his boy. But Zuko, bless him, is the picture of filial obedience, prostrating himself before his father, humbling himself in apology. Iroh’s heart goes out to the child. His younger brother always was arrogant and full of himself, but to do this to Zuko, tenderhearted, compassionate Zuko… How much more will he want him to humiliate himself before he is satisfied?

“You will learn respect. And suffering will be your teacher.”

And Iroh realizes that humbling Zuko was never the point at all.

Ozai _wants_ to maim his son.

_No,_ he thinks. _No._

The moment seems to stretch on forever. Iroh feels a chill surround him. Surely Ozai isn’t going to… Not against a defenseless boy who is already kneeling to him, _prostrating_ himself in supplication! This show of self-abasement should surely be enough for even the Fire Lord. Face upturned, tears running down his cheeks, the boy is the picture of penitence. Surely he will be satisfied, surely, _surely._ Iroh’s heart is aching for the child, and those pleading eyes aren’t even directed at him.

But if Ozai were going to forgive him, he would have done so already.

Tall and threatening, Ozai steps closer to his kneeling, weeping son. His left hand flashes out and grips the unresisting boy’s head by his ponytail. There is only one reason he would feel the need to restrain someone who isn’t fighting back. But still, _still,_ Iroh holds out hope. _Maybe he only wants to threaten him. Maybe he only wants to scare him._

_Suffering will be your teacher._

When Ozai raises his right hand and summons his flame, Iroh looks away.

But he can’t shut out the shriek that reverberates through the hall, pierces his heart, and forever after haunts his dreams.

It lasts forever and but a moment. Then Zuko is collapsing to the marble floor, face hidden by his arms and hair, thin sounds of agony tearing from his throat. Iroh doubts he’s aware that he’s even making a sound.

Disdainfully, Ozai straightens, and Iroh vows that he is no longer his brother from this moment on. “Prince Zuko has shown shameful weakness by refusing to fight,” Ozai intones, as though his own child shuddering half-conscious at his feet in the grip of indescribable agony means nothing to him. “He is hereby banished. Only if he captures the Avatar will he be allowed to return.”

There’s a murmur from the nobles. The Avatar was lost over a hundred years ago. If Iroh wasn’t so panicked, he’d be enraged: this is another impossible task, aimed only at humiliating the boy. Shrugging off the whispers and chatter, Ozai turns on his heel and stalks off out of the chamber. And good riddance.

The assembled nobles filter out. There’s a general air of satisfaction in them, of justice having been served. Iroh pushes through them to the agni kai floor, allowing himself a moment of violent disgust that he ever swore fealty to Ozai, that he ever pledged his loyalty to any nation that would so ruthlessly and gleefully torture a child. But it’s only a moment. He cares nothing for the nobles in the room anymore. At this moment, there is only one person he cares for.

Zuko is crouched in the center of the vast hall. He appears to be trying to stand, but his whole body is shaking violently and he can’t manage it, his hands slipping against the marble tile. Once he’s free of the press of bodies of the exiting nobles, Iroh runs to him. He kneels by his side and reaches for his shoulders, lifting his upper body so he can see how badly he’s hurt. Where his Agni-damned brother burned him – arm, hand, shoulder, chest…?

He lifts the trembling boy’s torso and gasps. _Face._

This is more urgent than Iroh thought. The skin around Zuko’s left eye is charred black and drawn back in wrinkles like a sheet pulled off a mattress, revealing red, weeping flesh underneath. Iroh will have to act quickly to save the boy’s eye. Rising, he scoops young Zuko up into his arms, making sure to keep the injured half of his face on the outward side, and sets off with quick strides to his own apartments.

“U-u-n-nc-c-c….” Zuko is trying to speak, but he’s too deep in shock, his teeth chattering together, the horrific injury taking more than the dear child has to give. “I c-c-c-c…”

“Hush,” Iroh says firmly. “Conserve your strength, Prince Zuko. I assure you, you need it now more than ever before.”

Aran is standing guard at the door to his apartments. Good. Aran is loyal. He bows as he opens the door for Iroh and Zuko. “Let no one in,” Iroh instructs, just this side of curt. He likes to be polite to all his men, but this is an emergency. Once inside, he hurries into the bedchamber and lays Zuko down on the bed, on top of the bedclothes. He’s still shaking hard, and sweat has broken out all over his body as though he’s in the throes of a fever. “Zuko, child,” he whispers. He hasn’t called Zuko ‘child’ in years, but he can be forgiven, perhaps, just this once. “Zuko, can you open your eye?”

It’s agonizing to watch the suffering child writhe on the bedspread, fists clenched, trembling all over, gritting his teeth with the agony of trying to open his fused-shut eye. “C-c-c…”

“Easy, easy, now. Hush, Zuko. That’s enough.” It’s even worse than Iroh thought. There is healing that needs to be done, now, and it would be better to get a healer to do it, one with experience in drawing out the flame from injuries, but Iroh’s willing to bet that his bastard of a brother has forbidden any healers from attending the Prince. That leaves Iroh, and he’s probably trained enough to do this. Not certainly, but probably.

Iroh takes a deep breath, looking down at his suffering nephew. So young, so sincere, so good-hearted, so eager to please, always. And now, hurting, shaking, maimed—for even if Iroh manages to save his eye, there’s no time to save the flesh around it as well. “Hold onto my hand, and trust me. Can you do that, dear child?”

“Y-y-y...” Zuko’s one good eye meets Iroh’s, desperate to please even now.

“Hush. Hush. Good.” He tries to dredge up a smile, but it won’t come. He clasps Zuko’s right hand tight in his left, places the fingers of his own right hand as close as possible to the horribly blistered flesh of his face, and reaches down for the fire that still lurks beneath the skin.

Bending fire all your life teaches you not just how to bend visible flame, but how to get inside fire’s very essence, to understand its nature. Iroh, like other old firebenders, knows this about fire: it _moves,_ it _spreads,_ it _consumes._ Burns do not stop burning when the flame is removed. The fire crawls deep under the skin, occupying the cells of the body, heating them from within, causing damage even when you think it is gone. This is why burns sear and linger for hours whereas a cut ceases to hurt immediately it closes. Part of bending fire is to seek out the flame beneath the skin, draw it out and dissipate it before it can do permanent damage.

Old firebenders virtually never get burned. Decades of bending heat and flame teach the individual cells of their body to manipulate fire, to allow it to slip harmlessly around the sides of the cell walls, rushing out as fast as it rushes in, letting its heat disperse into the ether. Young firebenders rarely get burned, also. But at the hand of a master firebender… pushing the heat into the victim’s body, entrapping it so it ruptures and blasts cells from within, with the depth of malice required to shatter the integrity of tissue with a thought, a touch, the directing of flame… Iroh seethes. _This_ is what Ozai has done to his child.

Iroh closes his eyes and reaches out with his senses. This is not like summoning, when you call upon the element and make it do your bidding—this is asking the fire’s permission where it lurks without flame, collecting the pinpoints of heat handful by handful from the cells of the injured body, and setting them free. With ethereal fingertips under the skin he pulls the points of fire in from where they are still burning Zuko’s eye, collects them and pushes them out into the room’s still air. Deeper he reaches, pushing out his senses, his mind, his heart, catching and collecting the dangerous flames like fireflies, drawing them out of his nephew’s body, letting them loose. And again. And again. And again.

Slow, honeyed relief starts to spill through Iroh as he realizes that the searing heat is gone, successfully dissipated from within the luminescent cells of iris and retina and the liquid substance that fills the whole. The eye is intact: it has been saved.

Next comes the ear. The delicate shell has been saved, by some miracle, not scorched down to bone, but the flesh around it has not been so lucky. Iroh reaches out now to the blistered skin and seared flesh on the cheek and surrounding the ear, seeking to draw out the heat. And he does, but it is too late, he has taken too long, and the damage is done, cell walls blown out, tissue scorched, blood and skin and delicate muscle damaged beyond repair. He manages to draw the heat out from the underskin muscles and tendons, enough to allow Zuko to retain his hearing. Then he works on the muscles that grant facial mobility, and pulls out the remaining fire enough to make the boy not go mad from horrific, unimaginable pain, but the eyebrow is gone, too late to be repaired, and there’s nothing he can do about the scarring that will forever mar his beloved child’s face.

By the time he’s done, Zuko is fast asleep, shattered from his ordeal and from the strain of the healing. Iroh gently undoes his ponytail to relieve the pressure on his skin. He takes a moment to arrange his hair and smooth it back from his face. He’s ignored the stench of burnt hair so far, but now he must attend to it. He crosses the few paces to the door and requests that Aran bring him bandages the healers’ most potent burn salve. Then he locates his shaving razor and gently, carefully, avoiding the weeping, burnt flesh, shaves off the crisped, singed hair around the burn, letting the damaged hairs part and fall to the floor until only the healthy hair remains. A good half of Zuko’s skull is shaved now, but that can’t be helped. It’ll grow back, Iroh consoles himself.

A knock on the door has him hurrying to open it. Armed with the supplies Aran has brought, he darts back to Zuko’s bedside, slathering the terrible burn with the healing ointment, filling the creases of the skin crumpled and charred like the ruins of burnt black fabric. Once it’s so thickly covered that the burn is no longer visible, he lays a pad of cotton over the injury, securing it in place with gentle layers of bandages.

When he’s done all he can for the child, Iroh settles into a chair next to his bed to watch over him. Zuko looks so young, sleeping, with the bandage obscuring half his face… but Iroh knows that this is the day his youth ends. Prince Zuko is only thirteen, yet his childhood has been cauterized out of him. He will never be young again.

Exile. Iroh shakes his head. As if maiming him wasn’t bad enough. Ozai has gone mad with power. _Mad._ Zuko is a good boy… too good, Iroh realizes slowly, to be Ozai’s boy anymore. He has been showing a conscience, showing compassion – it was compassion that impelled him to speak out against sending that battalion out to die – and kindness. All traits that his brother would think of as weakness.

Zuko shifts in his sleep, his face pained. His head rolls from side to side. “I’m your loyal son…” he mutters. “Please…”

Iroh feels his fists clench, but he deliberately unclenches them and takes young Zuko’s hand in his own. “Hush,” he whispers. “It’s going to be okay, child.” He has to stop calling him that. “It’s going to be okay, nephew,” he tries again. Better. More respectful. He’ll need to be showing him respect when they’re on a warship.

Exile. Iroh nods his head. He can manage that. His own standing in the army will get them at least one warship, and a decent crew. After all, it would be unbecoming for the Firelord to send his son out to capture the Avatar without a ship and crew. The big question is what to pack. Knowing Zuko, he will probably pack the minimum needed to survive – but Iroh’s grown quite attached to his creature comforts over the years. It’s going to take a bit of planning to get everything onto the ship in the no-doubt-short time his brother will give them to get their stuff together. Some furniture and fine linens and blankets, and of course all his books and games are _indispensable_. As much gold as he can transport, Agni knows they’ll need it. The ship should probably have a decent galley, so he won’t need to be taking cooking utensils…

“…Father?”

Iroh’s out of his chair in an instant. “No, ch—nephew,” he murmurs, taking Zuko’s hand. “It’s just me.”

“Uncle…” Zuko whispers. “Is it true? Exile?”

Iroh squeezes Zuko’s hand and looks into his ravaged, bandaged face, letting his own grief show. “Yes,” he confirms. “I’m sorry.”

Zuko opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out, and then he’s shaking with sobs. Iroh bends over him and wraps an arm around him, holding him close. Zuko buries the uninjured side of his face into Iroh’s shoulder and cries.

When his sobs have subsided, Iroh lifts Zuko’s head in one hand – he can still barely move – and gives him some water. Then Zuko falls asleep again. Iroh isn’t surprised. The poor boy is exhausted from shock and pain.

But when Zuko’s eyes snap open a few hours later, Iroh finds himself drawing back. “I will find the Avatar,” are the first words out of his mouth.

“Prince Zuko,” Iroh says, forcing a smile. “The Avatar has been gone for a hundred years. The chances of finding him—”

“I _will_ find him.” Zuko’s face is ice, no trace in it of the sensitive boy he was only hours before.

Iroh chills. There’s something in his nephew’s face that reminds him of his brother, nothing but bitterness, the innocence and sweetness seared out of him. “You need to regain your strength. There are steps we need to take to prepare—”

“Then we will take them.”

“Yes,” Iroh smiles placatingly. “You still need to recover, and—”

“I _am_ recovered,” Zuko snaps. With difficulty he struggles up to a sitting position, waving off Iroh’s proffered arm, and he has to gasp for breath once he’s upright. Iroh aches to support him, to hold him, but he knows it would not be welcome. “My father will give me no time. I must prepare imme…” He pants, weakened by shock and his wound. “…immediately. I…”

“Yes. We must prepare a ship,” Iroh says briskly, relieved that this attitude on his part seems to calm Zuko. He starts to list, ticking off on his fingers. “We need a destroyer-class battleship. We must supply it well and plan out a route. We must select a captain and crew with experience not only of these waters but beyond, and we must be sure to be up-to-date with maps.”

“Yes,” says Zuko, damaged eyes staring fixedly ahead. “I _will_ prepare a ship. I _will_ find the Avatar. I _will—”_ He stops, staring wide-eyed at Iroh. “We? You said ‘we’?”

“I said ‘we’,” Iroh says, smiling like he’s just been invited to a birthday party.

This appears to take the wind out of Zuko’s sails. “But… Did—did he exile you, too?”

There is a time for truth, Iroh thinks, and a time for lies. “Yes,” he fibs cheerfully. Time enough for Zuko to find out the truth later, on a ship far from home. “We might as well be exiled together, mightn’t we, nephew? Misery loves company, and all that.” He finishes up his declaration with a broad grin.

“But… why?”

Iroh spreads his arms wide with another smile. “Have _you_ ever understood the Fire Lord?”

“It’s because of me, isn’t it.” Zuko’s shoulders slump. “You probably tried to defend me, and angered him.”

“Now that’s giving yourself too much credit. My interactions with my own brother are hardly going to be affected by my little nephew.” Zuko bristles at the ‘little’ and Iroh’s smile widens. That was an effective distraction. “The main thing is, we shall be exiled together.”

The way some of the tension drains out of Zuko’s shoulders tells Iroh he has made the right choice. And the fractional softening of Zuko’s face tells him that maybe, maybe, the sweet-hearted child he loves so dearly is not completely crushed, just hiding. “I absolutely refuse to leave without my games,” Iroh fusses. “I also insist on bringing my library. A good book is a friend forever, as the proverb says. We need to stock up on various kinds of tea. Then we need to see about music on board ship…”

Zuko is frowning, looking impatient, but Iroh just keeps talking. He knows that of all his incessant prattle, the one word worth repeating is ‘we’. And he will keep saying it for always.


End file.
